Car Stereo Reviews

The T550HD receives crystal-clear digital radio signals from participating radio stations, allowing owners to enjoy a considerable listening experience upgrade over troublesome analog radio. With HD radio technology, stations can broadcast two to three extra channels of content in addition to their main channel. The T550HD can pick up these bonus channels. A USB connection is built into the T550HD for an iPod, MP3 player, or flash memory stick. The T550HD must be connected to a compatible receiver to work. If the T550HD is paired with an Alpine IVA-W505 or iDA-X100 receiver, it can also perform iTunes tagging on digital radio songs. When an interesting song comes on, owners simply need to press a button on the T550HD to save the song’s information to their iPod. If an iPod is not connected, the T550HD will save up to fifty songs on its own. After saving, the next time the iPod is connected to iTunes, it will show the desired song information for potential purchase.

However, the T550HD suffers from a number of potentially damaging flaws. The T550HD requires a significant software upgrade which can only be done by Alpine’s factories. After purchasing the T550HD, owners will likely need to send their unit to Alpine to receive the upgrade before they can adequately make a decision about whether the T550HD is a keeper or not. Without the software upgrade, the T550HD will provide extremely poor performance as a radio tuner. Also, despite the excellent performance claims of digital radio, it remains to be seen how many stations have transitioned to broadcasting digital signals. Depending on the listening area, a digital radio tuner may or may not be a sensible purchase at this time. Installation of the T550HD can be tricky, particularly for newcomers to car stereos, and the instruction manual is somewhat lacking.

Digital radio does present a quality listening experience when compared with analog radio. The Alpine TUA T550HD HD Radio Tuner brings digital radio into the vehicle, but at a potentially aggravating and annoying cost. It retails for around $175, but the T550HD is a somewhat questionable purchase at this time. People looking into buying the T550HD, be warned.

The iDA-X100′s primary claim to fame is its complete integration with iPods. The full TFT screen will clearly display the artist, track and album of the song being played in a large, easily-readable font. The rotary encoder knob allows users to quickly scroll through the artists, tracks or albums, allowing the desired song to be located with speed and ease. The knob is similar to the click wheel on iPods. The iDA-X100 even charges your iPod with a digital USB connection to keep the music playing on even the longest trips. With the iTunes Tagging feature, HD radio songs can be identified and tagged for downloading later through iTunes. The iDA-X100 even accepts USB memory sticks for people who do not own an iPod. The Back button provides a convenient way to return to a previous step, rather than start over from the home menu. The iDA-X100 connects to a number of Alpine’s peripheral equipment upgrades, such as satellite radio or Bluetooth gear. Owners will be able to add or subtract extra peripherals, depending on what functions they want in their vehicle. The 2-band parametric equalizer sound quality is solid for the price range, but can be tuned to fit a specific vehicle with the KTX-H100 tuning kit and PXA-H100 IMPRINT sound processor if necessary.

However, the iDA-X100 does have some faults. While the iDA-X100′s screen font is easily read, the screen itself is a bit small. Combine the small screen with the large font, and it’s difficult to read much information at one time. The text display rate on the screen is very slow, leaving the words to appear one letter at a time over ten to fifteen seconds. Some buttons could have been made to be larger for easier use during driving. The Play/Pause, Next and Previous buttons in particular should have been larger, considering they are the buttons likely to be used most often.

The Alpine iDA-X100 Digital Media Receiver retails for about $200. Designed to perfectly complement iTunes and the iPod lineup from its initial design, the Alpine iDA-X100 comes recommended most for Apple enthusiasts who need their music fix in the car.

The design of this Alpine model has most of the controls on the left side of the faceplate. Four blue buttons are used for power, band, fast forward, and rewind highlight the most common and very basic functions of the Alpine. A metal lever with a soft handle can be twisted to control volume and pressed to go through basic audio adjustments.

A telephone button and a sound setup button are next to the volume, both are pretty pointless, however. Below the volume are buttons that controls the mute, search, and play/pause functions. Underneath the CD slot is the screen, which occupies most of the faceplate. You can go through and change what the screen displays. It will display files and folders in the database, as well as information about the music of your choice. However, the screen isn’t quite big enough to show all of them at once.

Next up is the USB port which is located on the far right side of the screen. Though some might like the easy access of it, many think that it should look a bit more hidden, it depends on whether you don’t mind dealing with wires or not. The bottom part of the screen has some radio options, like repeat, shuffle, and a button that runs through display information.

Some features of the Alpine CDE-102 begin with playback of standard radio stations and audio CDs, as well as adding MP3/WMA/AAC playback options. You are able to add music to the unit, thanks to the USB port. It is easy to browse through all of your files, folders, and music with the search feature. While Alpine has said that it’s made for the iPod and iPhone, it doesn’t support what is needed to run it, so you have to purchase an iPod connection cable to use those services.

Some performance issues are that it has trouble reading larger media databases, but smaller ones are just fine. You have to press and hold the volume for more than a few seconds to get into the sound feature, which helps raise the quality of music for lesser speakers.

There’s no question that this stereo system isn’t bad, but by no means is it top-tier. The Alpine CDE 102 lacks versatility, most of all. However, for simply listening to CDs or the radio, it performs the job at an above average level. For those that would like a system with more customizable options, it’s a good idea to look at a better product.